I have only ever been a fan of one college football team, the Louisiana Ragin’ Cajuns. In recent years, I have been slowly warming up to other Sun Belt teams. This season, however, I am even more set in my ways because of the action of most of the other conferences (and Louisiana’s win over Iowa State).

                Since COVID-19 came around, the whole world has lost its mind. Between some of the travel restrictions and societal restrictions, various members of the NCAA football world were able to make their place and find increasingly ridiculous ways to exhibit caution. First and foremost as the conferences who decided to postpone their seasons altogether. The Big Ten, Pac-12, Mid-American Conference, and the Mountain West Conference all jumped early to cancel some or all of their fall sports. They were joined by a handful of schools who separated from their conference to cancel their own seasons. Obviously, college football is back, and so the leadership for these conferences must surely feel like a fool now. I know I would.

                While cancelling entire seasons seems wild enough, the SEC took the stupidity a step farther and opened up the season to 10 conference only games. This move looks like both a “holier-than-thou” attitude by the SEC, and the strangest coronavirus precaution ever. Most of the other remaining conferences are allowing room for at least one non-conference game, which is a step in the right direction. Allowing the schools freedom to play outside their conference is the best way to truly gauge the merit of all of the teams. Imagine how little sense college football rankings and playoffs can be this year.

                Sun Belt, of course, picked the best situation: eight conference games with the freedom to play four non-conference games. While the SEC will be holed off to themselves, the Sun Belt Conference is being put on display as having talented teams (Louisiana becoming a ranked team, 21, after the win over then-23 Iowa State; Arkansas State win over Kansas State; Coastal Carolina win over Kansas).

                Now that college football has come back to life for a week or two, the Big Ten suddenly decides that, hey, maybe we SHOULD play this year! These clowns, who jumped the gun in postponing the season, realizes the error of their ways and wants to come back. And who could blame them? I’m sure they got scared of losing that sweet, sweet football money—however little they are set on collecting.

                But the impact of these messed up seasons should be thought out: If fall sports are postponed until spring, guess who is going to suffer? The football teams will, having very limited seasons without much diversity. The spring sports will suffer as well, knowing they will have to share time, fans, and school resources with the fall sports. The fall sport fans will be suffering from the same issues as the football teams and other fall sports. And the conferences will suffer the loss of respect by people like me, who think they made great mistakes and should pay dearly.

                This may be a hot-take, but it deserves to be said anyway. The SEC should not be allowed to hold ranked positions or qualify for college playoffs. If they don’t want to play with teams outside their conference, they should be ignored just as much as their positions are considered.

Sources:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2020/08/12/college-football-canceled-faq/

https://www.deseret.com/sports/2020/7/15/21322769/college-football-fall-2020-canceled-conference-only-big-ten-pac-12-sec-big-12-acc-mountain-west

https://www.cbssports.com/college-football/news/why-the-sun-belts-three-big-12-shockers-are-the-tip-of-the-upset-iceberg-this-college-football-season/

                What happens to our political leanings when a pandemic comes to town? Blurred lines appear in between.  Leftists start leaning right, and vice versa. Strange to watch from the sidelines. However, when this phenomenon is coupled with people incessantly talking and talking and talking on Facebook, it gets interesting. The event which was observed consisted of people softening their stances on some things, arguing for the opposing side on accident, and the usual misleading from mainstream medias. Luckily, I am here to point out a few discrepancies that others may be missing.

                The first, and most obvious in this writer’s opinion, is the argument for the rights of businesses to pick and choose who they serve. Welcome to conservatism! This idea has been a large part of the right’s stance, and for good reason. Private businesses should be able to freely choose who they allow in the doors, and they should at the same time feel the full consequences of their decisions. No one wants a business to be discriminating customers based on color, ethnicity, religion, and so on, but if they do, they should be met with equal repercussions. Loss of business, perhaps? Of course, this idea was shamed upon by many on the left…until COVID-19 came around and people wanted (and still want) masks. Before businesses were forced into mask mandates, they could elect to not serve customers who were not wearing masks, and that was A-OK. Now, with this in mind, consider the plight of the cake baker and a gay couple.

                Another quirk, which is the funniest in this writer’s opinion, is the cry from leftists saying that the government has failed them in regards to more COVID-related stimulus. As if the government could be trusted to begin with! The right has been right about this as well. Government should be trusted with very little. That’s one of the big deals about this country. Listen here folks, if you NEED a stimulus, you need to be more responsible with your money. Period. We cannot hold our breath that the government will help, especially in the times we are living in. These sentiments are not new, either. We need to reduce the power of the government, while also promoting the power of private citizens to act like grown-ups and make a living.

                The interesting part about these two examples is the fact that they show one thing: the want for conditional freedom. Conditional freedom is an oxymoron. The last “Identity Crisis” article mentioned something of the sort, but from a different perspective. Whereas in that article, it was people on the left wanting to control minorities, in this perspective it is people who want to make their own freedom conditional. They want to expand freedom to private businesses, which in turn would increase their freedom of choice (guess what—you already have freedom of choice in whose business you patronize). Yet, they are afraid of financial freedom (see reliance on stimulus checks and support for Marxism and socialism). Confusing, isn’t it?

                The confusion amongst people is almost understandable. The most abhorrent aspect of all this is the double standards being put forth. It’s hard to seem perfect when you actually have convictions. It’s easy to make yourself look like the good guy if you just pick the “right” side, with out arguing on behalf of principles. Our principles should be strongly held. We should be using these principles to pull ourselves away from discussing issues from a position of emotion. When we detach ourselves from the emotional aspects of major issues and look from a principled perspective, we can find better, effective solutions. With such discourse, we can make actual progress.

                What has our character become? Where can we find those honest qualities in a person that stand out? Is the quality of a person declining as the years and powers of social media grow? It’s a disconcerting thing. The sad part is, the people who are exhibiting such behaviors are people who should know better. Adults who have good educations. Prominent media companies. Not the young children you would think exhibit such behavior.

                Our situations, while not entirely in our control, do have room for us to exhibit the personal accountability. Our reactions are very much our choice. We can own situations, or we can sit and moan in a corner and complain. The personal accountability comes in with how we either A) Got into these situations or B) Make them our own or C) Get out of these situations. Take, for example, picking a discipline of study to major in. The personal accountability is there in that it is a free choice to pick a major. The knowledge of which majors generally produce more lucrative careers, which ones generally produce stable livings, and which ones are not inclined to be big money-makers.

                There are many actions we can take daily which exhibits our personal accountability. Showing decorum on social media is one way. Anybody can go on a stream-of-consciousness-type rant on Facebook or Twitter. However, it is no secret that companies, while in the hiring process, are known to look through potential candidate’s social media accounts. It is no secret that companies have social media policies for their own employees. Generally, when starting a new company, we have to sign paperwork acknowledging such policies. Consequently, it should be no surprise when such policies are enforced.

                Look at our behavior in public. We can choose to be or to not be a good, decent person in our day to day lives. These actions which we freely take, have positive and negative consequences. I can choose to make a fool of myself yelling to some poor part-time worker that their mask policy is ridiculous, and become the next local celebrity for all the wrong reasons. Or I can behave properly, and either wear a mask and shop somewhere else and make everyone, including myself, happy.

                Take our behavior with police. This has been a touchy subject lately, but if people want to have a conversation, then listen up. By and large, negative police interactions can be solved by not committing crimes and complying with the people in authority. It’s not always a perfect situation, and I am not saying that all the world’s problems could be solved by a single shift in perspective. That being said, it is also not a secret that police will use force if necessary or if they find themselves in harm’s way. I wouldn’t ride my bike in the street in front of a speeding 18-wheeler. I may have the right-of-way, but I’m still going to lose that fight just about every time. My personal accountability is staying on the side of the road until the potentially dangerous situation is gone. If I am pulled over, whether or not I actually committed a traffic violation, it would be crazy for me to try and run or fight off an officer who is doing their job. Unfortunately, this is the situation we see more often then not. And it is completely avoidable.

                We all should be acting like adults. We all have the capacity to. We all know that there are consequences, positive and negative, which exist for every action we take. We can be sympathetic to the things outside of the control of others, but we should not accept people who do not own up to their situations and refuse to act accordingly. People who know better should act better, and we should hold them to these standards. More importantly, we should hold ourselves to higher standards than we would hold anyone else.

                One interesting aspect of social media is the ease which people can share their opinions on anything from the weather to the deepest conspiracy theories. In this capacity, one can easily see which opinions are well thought out, which ones are not, and which ones are a little crazy. Recently, several of my Facebook Friends have shared their negative opinions on people working just 40 hours a week. My knee jerk reaction, from the perspective of someone who would work 12+ hours a day for three full weeks at a time, is to think “Wow, I remember my first part-time job.”

                I worked my first 40 hour weeks when I was 14 years old. I am back to roughly 40 hours a week at my current job, with the hope that I will move back to 84 hour weeks, and yet all of these still seem like part-time jobs. That seems crazy on the surface, because who really wants to work more than 12 hours a day? For that matter, who even wants to work 40 hours a day? 

                Here’s the thing. We can all find motivation to make ourselves better. What I consider my full-time job to be is to become a better, more successful, more rounded person while utilizing the various situations I find myself to be in. I can always do more to excel at work. I can always do more in my off time to hone a skill or knowledge base, whether that be practicing musical instruments, reading and learning about the past, or even refreshing my memory of the two French classes I took in high school. Whether I am working or not, I can always do more to better my health, or cheat on healthy habits to enjoy the company of friends and family.

                Those who can find extra time around a 40 hour work week to better themselves, I believe, will move up in the world. One of my favorite mantras is “Make your own luck.” People who are successful in business and in life make their own luck. They can find the extra time when the motivation is there. Take Phil Knight, the founder of Nike. As he was getting the company which would become Nike off the ground, he was working to make ends meet—as a teacher and for an accounting firm. The myth of the 40 hour work week is that there is not enough time to do anything extra, which is a ridiculous thought. In a 24 hour day, if one works 8 hours Monday through Friday, then that leaves 8 hours for leisure and 8 hours for sleep. Anybody can choose what they do in those 8 leisure hours, and if they choose to continue to work then so be it. If they choose to chase a hobby, then so be it. One thing is certain: complacency can be an ugly feeling, which usually comes quietly and overstays its welcome.

                Imagine if we took the time that we spend complaining about this or that and instead used it to be productive in some way, shape, or form.  If we are to be productive, we must not let complacency in the door. We cannot let laziness grab a hold of us. Can you think of the potential that a shifting perspective can bring? Instead of complaining about a 40 hour work week, we can be thankful for a part-time job that allows us ample room to grow. Throw in a pinch of self-discipline, and we can make real, honest changes in our own lives and the lives of others. At the end of the day, maybe we can find the ultimate moral victory: People who are still complacent will go on and on and on about how we, the successful, are bad people. I am coming for you, Bezos.